FA+
Shop
210 submissions
I've spend some time looking over the corpse of my, and probably your dear old friend, Saturday Morning Cartoons, I wondered what killed it. Of course after looking at it's destroyed body I found plenty of wounds. ANd one major one. So I think it's best to list them all out that I've seen. Not in necessarily order but the major killer will be noted.
#1: Anime. Importing shows from Japan was never really a new thing. Anyone remember Voltron? G-Force(the ACTUAL cartoon not the Disney movie)? So we know there was mutual enjoyment. But somewhere down the line i guess you can say the states got addicted to the Kobe Beef to the point where it's now over run with it. Two different versions of Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Sailor Moon. Wether good or not it's just too much. Bruising but not severe.
#2: Branding. Another thing that's always been there. I think it's better to say BIG CORPORATE Branding. It wasn't bad when it was lets say, Fox Kids because, well, that was the channel it was on. However, Disney's One Saturday Morning, that's a stretch in the bad way. Damaging but not critical.
#3: The Re-animation machine. If you're reading this, you know that machine all too well. Sometimes it brings us good things like Justice League Unlimited, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, The Batman and Tiny Toons. But most of the time, you get dribble like Yo Yogi!, Flintstone Kids, Tom and Jerry Kids, and name a Scooby Doo series that's not the original, A Pup Named Scooby Doo(some of the guys who did that worked on Tiny Toons so that saves them), and the most recent Scooby Doo! Mystery Inc.(It has a story that keeps from episode to episode). Stressful but didn't break
#4: Live Actors. In this I would probably give Power Rangers a pass. They're part of that Anime section technically. But every so often they attempted a show or two that went against a simple rule of mine: Nothing over a half hour. Meaning if you have one live action show already in your line up, you don't need another. Blinding mess easily wiped away(most of the shows didn't last long minus the one mentioned)
#5: Big to little. Confused? What if I said shows that were originally movies and then turned into cartoons. You get it now? Men in Black ----> Men in Black: The Animated Series. Tarzan----> Disney's Tarzan. Slowed down. Not out
#6: Edutainment. At some point someone got the "bright" idea to add some education to the Saturday Morning cartoon line up. The problem? It was done before, and BETTER. The better show had a subtle message or took time after the main show to teach ya something. Look up G1 Pound Puppies, Inspector Gadget, Centurions, Captain Planet and the Planeteers(blunt but doesn't leave permanent damage messages), and do i even need to mention Schoolhouse Rock and G1 GI Joe? Well now you know. (and say it with me) And knowing is half the battle.
And now, for the major fatal wound that killed Saturday Morning. It's.....
#7: Political Correctness and Censorship. No it's not a tie between these two. It's these two put together. Now I've spoken about Saturday Morning from the perspective of let's say early 80's to mid 90's. During this time there was Censorship. But when asked why you censor the answer was "Bad taste." So the line up would look like this:
Censorship
>Common Sense
> TV
See that thing in the middle? That's what kept Censorship in check. You had that make sure the censor board was never really needed because you could just know that even if a touchy subject was going to be handled, it would have been done with tact and subtlety. But after the mid 90's, someone had the dumb idea that everyone had common sense. Well they technically do but not the kind to be used in tv. So common sense was taken out and it looked like this:
Censorship
>Political Correctness
> TV
Like that new edition? Now you don't do it because of "Bad Taste." Now you don't do things because "Lawsuit and Fines." THIS is what killed Saturday Morning Cartoons because now Censorship was pretty much not left to it's own devices, but went way out of control. And the Irony? CARTOONS WARNED US ABOUT IT!!!!
Don't believe me? There's an episode of Animaniacs where they wanted Skippy to tone it down. Result? He gets his ass kicked until SLappy says to stop talking and start doing. Tiny Toons had it where some Censor board woman was stealing their basic toon essences so something like a banana peel fall would hurt them. BeetleJuice(good example of Big to Little but works as it lasted longer then one season) a fairy was cleaning up everything they did while they were doing it. I think the one show that hit what happened entirely to Saturday morning, and it's a cheat as it didn't happen on Saturday, was Dinosaurs. Why this Friday night show made by Jim Henson's animatronic team? Look up the Smoo episode. That's us now.
#1-6 only caused bruises, cuts, scrapes but no fatal injuries. #7 was the one that broke it and killed as no one really noticed until it was too late. So if you have something to add in rememberance, pick up a bowl, pour your fave cereal, and let it out here. I'm gonna sit down and relax now
#1: Anime. Importing shows from Japan was never really a new thing. Anyone remember Voltron? G-Force(the ACTUAL cartoon not the Disney movie)? So we know there was mutual enjoyment. But somewhere down the line i guess you can say the states got addicted to the Kobe Beef to the point where it's now over run with it. Two different versions of Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Sailor Moon. Wether good or not it's just too much. Bruising but not severe.
#2: Branding. Another thing that's always been there. I think it's better to say BIG CORPORATE Branding. It wasn't bad when it was lets say, Fox Kids because, well, that was the channel it was on. However, Disney's One Saturday Morning, that's a stretch in the bad way. Damaging but not critical.
#3: The Re-animation machine. If you're reading this, you know that machine all too well. Sometimes it brings us good things like Justice League Unlimited, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, The Batman and Tiny Toons. But most of the time, you get dribble like Yo Yogi!, Flintstone Kids, Tom and Jerry Kids, and name a Scooby Doo series that's not the original, A Pup Named Scooby Doo(some of the guys who did that worked on Tiny Toons so that saves them), and the most recent Scooby Doo! Mystery Inc.(It has a story that keeps from episode to episode). Stressful but didn't break
#4: Live Actors. In this I would probably give Power Rangers a pass. They're part of that Anime section technically. But every so often they attempted a show or two that went against a simple rule of mine: Nothing over a half hour. Meaning if you have one live action show already in your line up, you don't need another. Blinding mess easily wiped away(most of the shows didn't last long minus the one mentioned)
#5: Big to little. Confused? What if I said shows that were originally movies and then turned into cartoons. You get it now? Men in Black ----> Men in Black: The Animated Series. Tarzan----> Disney's Tarzan. Slowed down. Not out
#6: Edutainment. At some point someone got the "bright" idea to add some education to the Saturday Morning cartoon line up. The problem? It was done before, and BETTER. The better show had a subtle message or took time after the main show to teach ya something. Look up G1 Pound Puppies, Inspector Gadget, Centurions, Captain Planet and the Planeteers(blunt but doesn't leave permanent damage messages), and do i even need to mention Schoolhouse Rock and G1 GI Joe? Well now you know. (and say it with me) And knowing is half the battle.
And now, for the major fatal wound that killed Saturday Morning. It's.....
#7: Political Correctness and Censorship. No it's not a tie between these two. It's these two put together. Now I've spoken about Saturday Morning from the perspective of let's say early 80's to mid 90's. During this time there was Censorship. But when asked why you censor the answer was "Bad taste." So the line up would look like this:
Censorship
>Common Sense
> TV
See that thing in the middle? That's what kept Censorship in check. You had that make sure the censor board was never really needed because you could just know that even if a touchy subject was going to be handled, it would have been done with tact and subtlety. But after the mid 90's, someone had the dumb idea that everyone had common sense. Well they technically do but not the kind to be used in tv. So common sense was taken out and it looked like this:
Censorship
>Political Correctness
> TV
Like that new edition? Now you don't do it because of "Bad Taste." Now you don't do things because "Lawsuit and Fines." THIS is what killed Saturday Morning Cartoons because now Censorship was pretty much not left to it's own devices, but went way out of control. And the Irony? CARTOONS WARNED US ABOUT IT!!!!
Don't believe me? There's an episode of Animaniacs where they wanted Skippy to tone it down. Result? He gets his ass kicked until SLappy says to stop talking and start doing. Tiny Toons had it where some Censor board woman was stealing their basic toon essences so something like a banana peel fall would hurt them. BeetleJuice(good example of Big to Little but works as it lasted longer then one season) a fairy was cleaning up everything they did while they were doing it. I think the one show that hit what happened entirely to Saturday morning, and it's a cheat as it didn't happen on Saturday, was Dinosaurs. Why this Friday night show made by Jim Henson's animatronic team? Look up the Smoo episode. That's us now.
#1-6 only caused bruises, cuts, scrapes but no fatal injuries. #7 was the one that broke it and killed as no one really noticed until it was too late. So if you have something to add in rememberance, pick up a bowl, pour your fave cereal, and let it out here. I'm gonna sit down and relax now
Category All / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1279 x 1280px
File Size 116.7 kB
The 1990 Children's Act ruined kids tv
The last cartoon with material that brings young and old together prior to FiM was Redwall
I have nothing against educational content but it should be done in regards of not politically tinging out kids, Sesame Street was educational but nowadays it's educational quota is mostly tinged with the leftist mindset (i mean Elmo shilled for the FCC for free Broadband under OUR taxpayer's dime for crying out loud - proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSOPExsytdc)
Anime nowadays isn't sunshine and lollipops these days, once upon a time Anime fans welcome the likes of Gregory Horror Show, Nerima Daikon Bros and so forth but these days they want boobs, bombs and bloodshed which is why Kaiketsu Zorori, Zenryoku Usagi and Usavich hardly see US release or broadcast
I agree wholeheartedly on #7 but then again Political Correctness has gone bonkers since 2008 via the media over exploited the race card in the election of that year
Imported programs are hit and miss these days as well
there's your crud like Total Drama (ALL of them) and Almost Naked Animals
and there's the decent kind like Scaredy Squirrel for example
about #4, Power Rangers is not REALLY anime parse - It's a genre of it's own called Tokusatsu - a type of live action used in IPs like Power Ragers/Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Godzilla, Giant Robo/Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot and Ultraman
#3 is in a way ad-nausea but sometimes it can be good like Tom & Jerry Kids
The last cartoon with material that brings young and old together prior to FiM was Redwall
I have nothing against educational content but it should be done in regards of not politically tinging out kids, Sesame Street was educational but nowadays it's educational quota is mostly tinged with the leftist mindset (i mean Elmo shilled for the FCC for free Broadband under OUR taxpayer's dime for crying out loud - proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSOPExsytdc)
Anime nowadays isn't sunshine and lollipops these days, once upon a time Anime fans welcome the likes of Gregory Horror Show, Nerima Daikon Bros and so forth but these days they want boobs, bombs and bloodshed which is why Kaiketsu Zorori, Zenryoku Usagi and Usavich hardly see US release or broadcast
I agree wholeheartedly on #7 but then again Political Correctness has gone bonkers since 2008 via the media over exploited the race card in the election of that year
Imported programs are hit and miss these days as well
there's your crud like Total Drama (ALL of them) and Almost Naked Animals
and there's the decent kind like Scaredy Squirrel for example
about #4, Power Rangers is not REALLY anime parse - It's a genre of it's own called Tokusatsu - a type of live action used in IPs like Power Ragers/Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Godzilla, Giant Robo/Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot and Ultraman
#3 is in a way ad-nausea but sometimes it can be good like Tom & Jerry Kids
There are several other things:
Cable Cartoon Channels. When you can get cartoons 24/7 why do you need Saturday Morning?
Video Tape and DVDs. Same story. Attendence at movie theaters is down for similar reasons. (try looking at a list of top films by attendence rather than gross sales some time)
But I agree that the biggest reason is edutainment and political correctness. When was the last time you saw a crow in a cartoon?
One more, minor one, but I think it needs mentioning -- fear of the Furry Fandom. Just about every new cartoon has either fantastic creatures or humans or both. Gone are the anthropomorphic animals, primarily because some idiot is afraid that some furry is fapping to it.
Cable Cartoon Channels. When you can get cartoons 24/7 why do you need Saturday Morning?
Video Tape and DVDs. Same story. Attendence at movie theaters is down for similar reasons. (try looking at a list of top films by attendence rather than gross sales some time)
But I agree that the biggest reason is edutainment and political correctness. When was the last time you saw a crow in a cartoon?
One more, minor one, but I think it needs mentioning -- fear of the Furry Fandom. Just about every new cartoon has either fantastic creatures or humans or both. Gone are the anthropomorphic animals, primarily because some idiot is afraid that some furry is fapping to it.
I never considered fear of the Furry Fandom as I was thinking out of anthro stuff and more content. In my head the main two killers are the reason Cable Cartoon Channels came to be. All the good but a tad edgy ideas got booted from the local stations and the emerging cable channels gave the green light. Could you imagine something like Adventure Time or Regular show on your local non-cable needed tv stations? I think what rang out the most, and what finally got me to actually make this rant, was watching the Nostalgia Critic's Animaniacs Tribute video. He had 5 people on there to talk with, one of them being Slappy Squirrel's voice actor. And the guy with the glasses asked Slappy what was wrong. Her answer as I remember it, "Every one's afraid to take an anvil to the face now." That answer even if i didn't quote it right is what made me say "This should be said"
I miss a lot of cartoons from my youth..I'll name the lot of them, if I can remember their names...
He-man, Ghostbusters(The original ~and~ the movie adaptation series, which lasted quite a while as I recall), Thundercats, G-Force, Silverhawks, Dinisaucers, Dino Riders (I think that's the name...where futuristic soldiers wind up on a dinosaur-filled world in the midst of a war, so they tame some of the wild beasts and armor them up with future tech and weapons. I recall that I had the Triceratops as a kid), The Secret World Of David the Gnome, Little-bits, the Little's, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sonic the HEdgehog (Not the weekday, the saturday morning show), Bravestar, Fantstic Max, the Adventures of Super Ted, Super Human Samurai Syber Squad (A personal favorite live-action, came out around the same time as The Power Rangers, the toys were fantastic), I miss the Bugs Bunny and Tweety show, and all the oldschool cartoons like Popeye, Betty boop, Casper the Friendly Ghost.
There are a lot more, but they're random, new things like "Spliced", which is on par with Ren and Stimpy as far as nonsense goes. Seems to be a lot of bodily fluids and one or two people getting eaten alive periodically. THe stories are pretty amusing, but there aren't too many episodes.
There real problem I see with animation these days...it's simplified..Nearly gone are the days when a group of people get together and hand-draw cells, hand-paint them, and make a frame out of them. Most of the time, cartoons are done digitally now, and a lot of people are turning to flash to make cartoons, and calling it "Animation"...To me, squishing a figure and making it 'springy' isn't animation..it's cheating, and lazy, and people should be ashamed to put that crap on television..don't even get me started on how ~generic~ it has made fan-artists. "Oh, look, it's my little Pony! I'm gonna draw like ~THAT~ from now on!" It's not a drawing...it's a flash cartoon...and in my opinion, probably all of the flash cartoons can go suck an egg, because they're unimaginative.
WHatever happened to, say, The Lensman? It was an anime feature based on a series of graphic novels/books that was, save for the very early computer generated graphics, was all hand drawn, hand painted, and it all looked ~beautiful~! There's just something about traditionally animated cartoons that seems...smoother..somehow...like some ~real~ effort went into making a visually appealing story?
To me, the lack of real animators is what killed Saturday Morning Cartoons...I would love to petition a station to play the Sonic the hEdgehog cartoon again...let kids see how cartoons are ~really~ supposed to look and feel.
He-man, Ghostbusters(The original ~and~ the movie adaptation series, which lasted quite a while as I recall), Thundercats, G-Force, Silverhawks, Dinisaucers, Dino Riders (I think that's the name...where futuristic soldiers wind up on a dinosaur-filled world in the midst of a war, so they tame some of the wild beasts and armor them up with future tech and weapons. I recall that I had the Triceratops as a kid), The Secret World Of David the Gnome, Little-bits, the Little's, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sonic the HEdgehog (Not the weekday, the saturday morning show), Bravestar, Fantstic Max, the Adventures of Super Ted, Super Human Samurai Syber Squad (A personal favorite live-action, came out around the same time as The Power Rangers, the toys were fantastic), I miss the Bugs Bunny and Tweety show, and all the oldschool cartoons like Popeye, Betty boop, Casper the Friendly Ghost.
There are a lot more, but they're random, new things like "Spliced", which is on par with Ren and Stimpy as far as nonsense goes. Seems to be a lot of bodily fluids and one or two people getting eaten alive periodically. THe stories are pretty amusing, but there aren't too many episodes.
There real problem I see with animation these days...it's simplified..Nearly gone are the days when a group of people get together and hand-draw cells, hand-paint them, and make a frame out of them. Most of the time, cartoons are done digitally now, and a lot of people are turning to flash to make cartoons, and calling it "Animation"...To me, squishing a figure and making it 'springy' isn't animation..it's cheating, and lazy, and people should be ashamed to put that crap on television..don't even get me started on how ~generic~ it has made fan-artists. "Oh, look, it's my little Pony! I'm gonna draw like ~THAT~ from now on!" It's not a drawing...it's a flash cartoon...and in my opinion, probably all of the flash cartoons can go suck an egg, because they're unimaginative.
WHatever happened to, say, The Lensman? It was an anime feature based on a series of graphic novels/books that was, save for the very early computer generated graphics, was all hand drawn, hand painted, and it all looked ~beautiful~! There's just something about traditionally animated cartoons that seems...smoother..somehow...like some ~real~ effort went into making a visually appealing story?
To me, the lack of real animators is what killed Saturday Morning Cartoons...I would love to petition a station to play the Sonic the hEdgehog cartoon again...let kids see how cartoons are ~really~ supposed to look and feel.
I'm gonna bring something rare to these kinds of arguements; the other side and some optomism.
The real loophole that i noticed from the censorship is your audience.
Network cartoons are now about edutainment. But cable cartoons dont have to reach every family in the country so they can be a bit looser.
Regular Show & Adventure Time has some rather surreal humor at times. One episode of Adventure Time featured a man ORDERING the woman to bring him a sandwich.
Several episodes of Regular Show allude to not only the reckless behavior of older shows, but clubbing & "hamboning".
If that was network TV, the switchboards would fry. But its cable. People paid for the luxury of hearing a semi-dark joke or two.
The real loophole that i noticed from the censorship is your audience.
Network cartoons are now about edutainment. But cable cartoons dont have to reach every family in the country so they can be a bit looser.
Regular Show & Adventure Time has some rather surreal humor at times. One episode of Adventure Time featured a man ORDERING the woman to bring him a sandwich.
Several episodes of Regular Show allude to not only the reckless behavior of older shows, but clubbing & "hamboning".
If that was network TV, the switchboards would fry. But its cable. People paid for the luxury of hearing a semi-dark joke or two.
I do have to say, my regret of Saturday mornings lies more in nostalgia than anything else. The media of television -- and by relation, animation -- has evolved over time. As I mentioned over IM's, the internet and 24-hour cartoon networks have pretty much made the idea of the dedicated Saturday morning of cartoons pretty much obsolete. It's just a matter of evolving with it and accepting that times have changed.
My personal regret of losing Saturday morning is in the individual shows that are no longer aired or available in any form. They happened to fall right into that time at the end of VHS but when DVD hadn't quite grown to power yet, so we never got to see any of them given any proper release for home viewing. Eek the Cat, Bobby's World, Garfield & Friends, Beetlejuice, X-Men... the list goes on. All animated shows that were staples of my childhood, but all of which died out and vanished before someone thought to put them onto DVD. Nowadays you can find all the modern cartoons in collections to view at home... but only if they were made in the past decade.
I would do ANYTHING for a complete Eek the Cat collection on DVD. God, I miss that show.
My personal regret of losing Saturday morning is in the individual shows that are no longer aired or available in any form. They happened to fall right into that time at the end of VHS but when DVD hadn't quite grown to power yet, so we never got to see any of them given any proper release for home viewing. Eek the Cat, Bobby's World, Garfield & Friends, Beetlejuice, X-Men... the list goes on. All animated shows that were staples of my childhood, but all of which died out and vanished before someone thought to put them onto DVD. Nowadays you can find all the modern cartoons in collections to view at home... but only if they were made in the past decade.
I would do ANYTHING for a complete Eek the Cat collection on DVD. God, I miss that show.
You can blame the ridiculous copyright laws these days and allows them to act as a dog in a manger with this stuff. They are so afraid that someone else might make a buck or two off of these old cartoons that they would rather sit on them and do nothing than release them to the public domain.
Comments